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“Largest TB outbreak in the United States”

In response to a public records request from The Palm Beach Post, the Duval County Department of Health, an arm of the Florida Department of Health, released this report from the CDC on Thursday, July 5. (See below.)

It had been sent to the state three months earlier, just nine days after Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed into law a bill that reorganized the Department of Health and closed the state’s only tuberculosis hospital.

Gov. Scott’s press office sent the following statement late Saturday, July 7:

“The number of TB cases in Florida has been trending downward for several years, but the Governor is aware that there is an isolated increase in a specific strain of tuberculosis centered in Duval county affecting approximately 99 people over the past eight years. While the number of cases remains relatively small, the increase that began in 2009 is still significant, and prompted state and county health officials to contact the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The state has been working actively with CDC since February of this year to implement recommendations that will help reduce the number of active cases.

The Governor’s goal is to make sure health resources are focused to meet the needs of public health, and that includes ensuring the placement of medical experts and personnel around the state.

Historically AG Holley has only treated a small percentage of the total TB cases statewide. However, the institutional expertise of the AG Holley team is valuable and state officials are working to ensure personnel from that facility are adequately placed in new positions around the state in order to maintain proactive preventative measures, adequate containment strategies and effective treatment protocols for all forms of tuberculosis and other public health concerns.

In addition, the statewide network of service providers and treatment protocols that have always existed will remain in place to treat TB cases.”